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Another issue exclusive to NAL is that the damage to masts through bow and stern raking is near useless since a) we have a rig repair (and only that, so you don't have to prioritise between rig and hull when repairing), and battles are usually over before damage to rig/masts has any real effect. You'd have to be really fast and efficient to take down a mast, then do it again after the rig repair, and then capitalise on it - while in the meantime your hull is probably getting hammered (paired with the fact that you can't take control of a boarded ship).

The sail repair feels a bit out of place actually. While it's obviously a pain to lose a mast and remain crippled for the rest of the fight, it's basically the same with gun and crew loss, isn't it? Once you've lost some guns and crew, you have to deal with it. There's no way of getting them back in Legends and I appreciate that.

However, removing the sail repair completely would require some mindful balancing in order to prevent the game from becoming just an endless sail and mast sniping. (Although I'd claim that mast sniping is still more interesting than the boarding minigame, but that's just my opinion.) At least chain shot would need to be limited to a certain amount of shots per gun and the overall mast HP would probably need a buff, so masts don't fall after only two broadsides from a similar sized vessel.

A nice side effect of not being able to get masts back could be that it would force people to be a bit more careful with ramming. Losing your bowsprit feels worse if you can't have a new one within seconds. On the other hand there's room to abuse this system. Take an agile ship to a larger ship's bow, slow down just in front of them, take their bowsprit and profit from your opponent's decreased manoeuvrability. We had that during Sea Trials.

So I'm not quite sure about this. Personally I'd like a destroyed mast to be more meaningful than it currently is, but maybe the 15 min. timer (that effectively limits the numbers of masts you can get back in one match) actually is the best balance we are able to reach here.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Jeremiah Gunsmoke

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My gripe is mostly that this is yet another thing that makes bow and stern raking rather useless in NAL. I can understand why they'd tone down the impact of these (have they already?) in a game like this since it's near impossible to avoid getting raked in brawls like the ones we see in NAL. It's just so inaccurate and gamey that you can safely point your bow or stern towards your enemy's broadside and only expect very little damage to crew, cannons, and structure - and then you can go ahead and sink your broadside into his side, which is far more effective in terms of winning a stand-off since ships in NA currently are very flimsy things that sink too easily.

My shout-out was for more consequences from getting raked, so you'd think twice about exposing your bow or stern to a full broadside: more crew loss (though not too much, unless we get one, very limited crew repair - in regular NA crew loss means nothing due to the magic rum rations, we don't want to see that here...), higher risk of cannon loss (again, not too much unless we get a hull repair, which also restores cannons), and most importantly, no limit to structure damage from rakes; this is the main issue right now, since a rake into an already damaged ship is pretty much wasted compared to the damage you can do through the sides.

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I agree that bow tanking feels quite powerful at the moment. Not sure about the lack of impact from stern rakes though. You can take out some guns and a decent number of crew in one proper stern rake with ball shot at medium distance. If you want to take out more crew, you will have to go for grape shot at close range. In one of my recently played matches I killed about 100 men on an enemy Indefatigable in one single stern rake with grape. That's 100 out of 350. So limiting the amount of crew damage from ball shot is probably a bit 'gamey' but also provides a reason for grape to be in the game.

Generally speaking I'd also say that ship sizes matter a lot when discussing this topic. It's easier to just destroy a Brig's side armour and main structure than to effectively rake it. Especially in a fight with mostly unrated ships almost all vessels are agile and small enough to limit the damage they take from rakes and get into a position where they're able to hit the enemy's broadside. In fights between frigates rakes are more important. Smaller ships can grape the larger ones' sterns and a small ship like the Cerberus, that points the bow towards a broadside of 18pdrs or even 24pdrs, wil probably take quite a beating too. I also managed to take out masts via rakes (both bow and stern rakes) already, but as stated before that doesn't really matter as long as masts can be replaced so easily.

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@Niels Terkildsen I find that I am using the urgent repair most of the time because my rudder is consistently getting shot away. The only time I have used rig repair is when I lost my bowsprit or in one game we were chasing players who were running and kiting us (they had the objectives). Also losing your rudder or pump is one penalty to stern/bow tanking for sure!

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@Niels Terkildsen I find that I am using the urgent repair most of the time because my rudder is consistently getting shot away. The only time I have used rig repair is when I lost my bowsprit or in one game we were chasing players who were running and kiting us (they had the objectives). Also losing your rudder or pump is one penalty to stern/bow tanking for sure!

I agree that rudder damage is very common, but I find that you get/inflict it almost as often when firing at the side. Same goes for pump.

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I would like to comment on a sadly common practice which occurs during matches in Naval Action Legends (but I assume in Naval Action in General): Deliberate Ramming

I have made a video on the topic appealing to community, but if this is not handled on gameplay systems level, I am afraid it will be a common practice once game goes live:

Anyway: my main points are: (and suggestions on how to address the issue)

Some players use deliberate ramming as a method to either ram, and turn opponent ship into submissive, unfavorable position, for either boarding or broadside, which they can do as there is little to no consequence of doing so (bowsprit broken, boooho, pop repair, fixed)

That tactic was used by Triremes, and Assasin's creed, definitely not Naval Action and Sailing ships. It is frustrating and enjoyment braking. Such deliberate behavior should be heavily discouraged

My Suggestions:

Since most players using that tactic are the ones of the profile, lets get the quickest kill, so we get XP and progress further - negate the ability to do so. Meaning introduce XP penalty for ramming. (Let's say -200 XP for ramming a ship - detected by a collision on the bow, or first 1/4 of the ship, either side). That should provide a slap on the wrist for unintentional ram, force players to pay more attention to their surroundings, and also stop players abusing the tactic from progression

In addition, to make it more historically correct, bring back the heavy damage to ships involved in a ram (loss of up to 40% structural integrity for the rammer and up to 15% for the rammee) The actual damage would be calculated by the relative speed of the collision (the speed at the point of impact). Also make loss of structure / armor - if you choose so depending on the side of the ship where impact took place.

To be clear, as i said in my video, I have nothing against an unintentional ram, it happens, its a process of learning, but abusing the mechanic should be heavily discouraged. Imagine you get into a fight where 80% of people are ramming and turning. If left unattended, this could be a main cause why people will be asking for private servers.

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A bow approach to enemy ships ( not full speed yolo but deliberately aiming for entanglement ) was a way to lock on, entangle both rigs and overall make the enemy ship open to a possible decisive boarding action. Maybe both, upon ramming, should suffer rigging shock and bleed speed ?

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A bow approach to enemy ships ( not full speed yolo but deliberately aiming for entanglement ) was a way to lock on, entangle both rigs and overall make the enemy ship open to a possible decisive boarding action. Maybe both, upon ramming, should suffer rigging shock and bleed speed ?

Perhaps then ramming speed would play then the decisive factor. I can see if the ships collide at 1-2 knots relative to each other that the intended action was captrure and entaglement as you suggest, however the issue i am talking (maybe not in the video as much) is ramming at T angle (so 90degrees) and at 5-7 knots relative velocity. For 2 equally equipped ships, that would render both incapable of further combat.

Nudging into submission is 1 thing, ramming like in AC origins is a different beast altogether :-)

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Lots of discussion about the ramming issue in threads on the NA forum. The missing component from a full on Trireme or fantasy AC style ram is the rigging damage. Deliberately collide to force a boarding action or get position - sure, but ram to sink no.

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@Niels Terkildsen I find that I am using the urgent repair most of the time because my rudder is consistently getting shot away. The only time I have used rig repair is when I lost my bowsprit or in one game we were chasing players who were running and kiting us (they had the objectives). Also losing your rudder or pump is one penalty to stern/bow tanking for sure!

KOC still doing that

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No balance again. People have better mods, I cant win boarding if their team simply do 2 times more damage, hiding in a brace-baricades. Same for ships, he has better cannons and this is not fair. Easy win for him. No chance for me. Boring. BOOOOOORING COMBAAAAT.

Devs do u hear me? Can you make a PVE server in NA or here? With conquest and all the nations? Cuz pvp is shitty, and always will be. You simply feed players with stronger ships. I dont have a lot of ex for being sank by op.
I may be a better captain but still he wins cuz better stats/mods. Happens every battle. Every. No exceptions. Same for NA PVP. Except in NA pvp it is 3 vs 1. Or 6 vs 1. But still. No balance.

Can we boycotte the game untill devs start working on PVE? Lads and lasses? Lets do it. Seriously

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Can we boycotte the game untill devs start working on PVE? Lads and lasses? Lets do it. Seriously

Wrong game. And then again, there is a difference between not playing a game because there is something you don't like and asking people to boycott it to stick it to the devs because you don't like it. Guess what is it?

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The xp grind is horrific to progress to a better ship unless you are very skilled. When this goes live, I am afraid many newbies will abandon the grind quickly. Solution? Lower the xp needed to get to the next level ship, at least until you get to a Cerb...

I feel that the xp for the kill is very unbalanced...and would rather it be reduced and more xp be given for damage.

The AI is extremely aggressive regarding boarding - it does not feel historic to me that boarding would be so automatic. If kept, friendly AI should be able to come to the rescue and join the boarding action on the player's side.

All this said, I enjoy the game - it delivers on its premise....

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I have a couple of gripes from the recent gameplay experiences I have had.

Firstly, can we stop the NPCs firing through friendly (namely, me) ships in order to hit a target they have no line of sight to? Ok, so their Captain may be able to see some hussy he had a fling with, cavorting with some gun hands, and feel obliged to share his jealousy with me.. He should not.

Secondly, I was in a match V numerous NPC rated craft and had, in my infinite wisdom, decided to annoy said rated craft with lots of lovely rakes. Over 1200 crew killed. Sweet XP for me, thinks I.

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I think, having made it up to the 4th rates that for 'the general public' the games take a little too long.

A 40 minute game (after a 3 min wait) is probably about right appetite wise for general punters. The 'hard core' NA lovers may care less but alot of the games go the full hour now, be it runners, maybe starting to far apart at the start, hull str too high or damage too low.

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Agree Jeheil, I suggest a 2x damage multiplier option to choose when entering queue, to fight against others who have also chosen that, for those that want a quick fight. NA Legends battles, imo, should not be long.

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Agree Jeheil, I suggest a 2x damage multiplier option to choose when entering queue, to fight against others who have also chosen that, for those that want a quick fight. NA Legends battles, imo, should not be long.

That is not a bad idea. I will even give that a thumbs up. But some smaller boats like a "reno" can be taken out in 2 flush braodsides from a agy if this went into play.

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having made it up to the 4th rates that for 'the general public' the games take a little too long.

You sure? The grind is still way faster overall than wows and wot, even if we factor in current 2x XP gains compared to 1.5x with premium later on. The matches last longer here, no doubt, but in wot you have to play around 12 hours of t7 to get to t8.

It could be a problem to be stuck a full hour per match, but I'm scared of messing with the fighting formula at this point.

NA is NA and has always been glorious but some of us lamented the downtime. Legends is NA but with (future) PvP on demand, isn't that good enough?

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Since most players using that tactic are the ones of the profile, lets get the quickest kill, so we get XP and progress further - negate the ability to do so. Meaning introduce XP penalty for ramming. (Let's say -200 XP for ramming a ship - detected by a collision on the bow, or first 1/4 of the ship, either side). That should provide a slap on the wrist for unintentional ram, force players to pay more attention to their surroundings, and also stop players abusing the tactic from progression

In addition, to make it more historically correct, bring back the heavy damage to ships involved in a ram (loss of up to 40% structural integrity for the rammer and up to 15% for the rammee) The actual damage would be calculated by the relative speed of the collision (the speed at the point of impact). Also make loss of structure / armor - if you choose so depending on the side of the ship where impact took place.

careful. if you place the burden on the rammer this can easily be exploited by getting in your way to force you to ram (or force you into a bad position). there's no practical way to assert intent in a ram. albeit unrealistic, for gameplay reasons damage should ideally be negligible, at least be similar for both parties to discourage exactly what you are describing.

regarding other comments.

yes, rudders seem to be made of glass, but it's more an annoyance than anything thanks to repairs. also, bots seem to be able to blow your rudder from almost any angle and distance.

about the progression ... i don't think it's too tough although i do see many complaints in the chat. more xp for damage and less for kills would probably make it easier, and also a bit more fair. i do find upgrades and officers are a bit too powerful, but maybe that's just me (actually i'd prefer everyone in the same vanilla ships, or at least very subtle upgrades with compromises, but i know this isn't a popular idea ).

what i don't really see the point of is the limited cannon choice. you get a new ship which you probably have never sailed, with no upgrades and on top of that have to use peashooters ... why?